Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City Thunder. Most of the time when fans start “M-V-P” chants for a player, it’s wishful thinking — Oklahoma City, go ahead and start chanting it for Durant with my blessing. To early to say if he wins the award, but he is in the conversation. The 46 he dropped on Portland make it eight straight games with at least 30 points as he carries the Thunder offense. It just isn’t volume, when the Thunder needed buckets late in this game Durant was raining threes on the Blazers. He’s been nothing short of phenominal lately.

Rudy Gay, Sacramento Kings. Gay had a well below average true shooting percentage of 46.8 percent when he was with Toronto for 18 games this season. He was the poster boy for an inefficient gunner. But in the 19 games since the trade to Sacramento Gay has a TS% of 59.6 — he has been very efficient. That includes Tuesday when he scored 41 on the Pelicans, taking just 25 shots.

LaMarcus Aldridge, Portland Trail Blazers. He finished with 29 points, and with that became just the third NBA player this season to get to the 1,000 point plateau (Kevin Durant and LeBron James are the others). Sure, it took him 26 shots, but still that is a nice accomplishment. That should get noticed.

Durant is the most unique player I’ve ever seen. He’s as tall as 90% of the centers in the league and handles the ball as well as any shooting guard in the league. He can hit any shot on the court to go with it and he’s fast as lightning on the break. We probably won’t ever see another player exactly like him.